


lay me down in a fiddler's cloud and float me out to sea (1/1)

by la_victorienne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-26 08:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne





	lay me down in a fiddler's cloud and float me out to sea (1/1)

_**lay me down in a fiddler's cloud and float me out to sea (1/1)**_  
 **title** : lay me down in a fiddler's cloud and float me out to sea  
 **rating** : pg-13  
 **pairing** : eames/ariadne  
 **spoilers** : none glaring, though there are references  
 **disclaimer** : all hail nolan, dreamer extraordinaire.  
 **writer's note** : 1015 words, post-Fischer job.  
 **summary** : A trajectory: two people, crossing in midair, each course altered by the other.

  
When the knock finally comes, it's not Arthur standing on her doorstep.

"Howya, Ari," he says, charming smile peeking out from a bouquet of purple flowers.

She's a little perplexed, but she swings the door wider; sharing a near death experience tends to instill trust in even the shadiest characters. "Come in, Eames—please."

"Jack," he corrects sharply. "Job's been over for years. You can call me Jack, now. Although please, not in front of Arthur. On second thought, always, in front of Arthur. It needles him, and you know how I love that."

He waggles his eyebrows at her until she laughs. "Jack, then. Well, come on, I've got a beer in the fridge."

"You are my favorite architect. I've told you that, right?" He follows her down the hall of her flat and installs himself on a vinyl barstool in her vintage kitchen, while she takes the irises and hands him a bottle from her powder-blue icebox.

"I take it these aren't a three-years-late housewarming gift," she says, reaching above the refrigerator for a vase.

"My mother always taught me to bring a gift if I planned to impose on someone's hospitality." Eames looks very proud of himself.

Ariadne just shrugs. "I've got a fold-out."

\- - -

It's actually remarkably easy, living with Jack Eames. He cooks like a dream with whatever's in the cupboards, and he never once complains about the fold-out bed giving him a crick in his neck, though she knows it does. She's rather used to it, really, used to throwing his laundry in with hers and batting clean-up when dinner is over. She's used to finding her scarves folded into pocket squares, waking up when he comes in late at night, and vaulting herself into his personal space on Saturday mornings so they can watch ridiculous French cartoons in the sofa bed together. (Or so he can complain of a headache, and she can translate in silly voices.) She never asks him what he's running from, or why he picked Paris. She's not so lonely, now that he's here, and that's enough. She's done her share of asking too many questions, without ever liking the answers.

Besides, on the rainy Saturday mornings he's already up when she pads in, waiting with a cup of coffee just the way she likes it, and they curl in and cover up like they're old and married for the whole lazy day. It's the only time she sees him so relaxed, so unguarded, and she finds herself memorizing the feel of the way she fits between his arm and his body, in case this time is the last.

\- - -

"We could move," she suggests one such Saturday, fingering her totem in her robe pocket. "You could have a real bed, a real room."

He looks down into his coffee for a long moment, and she wonders if she's gone too far. Eventually he just clears his throat, tugs her briefly closer, and releases, saying, "I'm not much one for permanence, bit, but thank you," and that is that.

\- - -

She has an episode the next week, the first since he arrived. They've been so few and far between for so long—but she's in the shower, and she's washing her hair, and all of a sudden she thinks of Mal, and Dom, and it hits her again, the way it always does—that he's still there, that she was wrong, she shouldn't have left him, the way it felt to realize that Saito had come back and Dom had not, and that it was her fault.

Eames finds her there on the floor of the shower, curled into herself while the spray beats hot welts into her skin, and tuts. By the time he cuts the water off, throws a towel around her, and lifts her into his arms, she's coming back to herself, and she's too grateful for the rescue to even care that he saw her naked. When she emerges from her room a half-hour later, he tactfully refrains from mentioning the fact that her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen.

"I made tikka masala," he says instead, and it's like she's only just seeing him, really and truly, for the first time.

She checks her totem in her pocket, just to be sure.

\- - -

Arthur does stop in, the once. He's on a job in Paris, thought he'd see how she was, does she need anything. They have the comfort and coolness of people who shared a kiss, once, and she smiles.

"No," she says simply. "I have Eames."

Arthur's eyes darken, ever so slightly. "Be careful," he says, and holds her for a long time before leaving.

\- - -

One night, he has a nightmare.

She hadn't thought he still dreamed at all anymore, but apparently nightmares make an exception. He's thrashing and kicking and at first she thinks he's brought somebody back with him, until she rubs the sleep out of her eyes and realizes it's just him, all tangled limbs and gasping breaths.

"Jack, hey," she calls softly, her hands reaching out to him, ghosting over his arms. "Jack, hey, it's me, it's Ari, you're dreaming, come on, you're dreaming."

But that isn't enough, tentative touches and a soft, modulated voice. Eames is all solid mass and rough edges, hard and dense and angular, and he needs something a little more deliberate. She pulls the sheets away, presses up against him, molds her body to his, as far as she can reach, and holds on, anchoring him.

She might have a few bruises, when his limbs still, but they're well worth the way he wraps his arms around her body and clings until morning.

\- - -

"It was about you," he volunteers over breakfast, and after all this time she thinks they might be getting somewhere. "I don't want to talk about, but I thought you should know."

She puts a hand on his wrist, squeezes. She doesn't say thank you, doesn't say anything, but she kisses his cheek when she stands.

\- - -

The next time Arthur visits, Eames has moved off of the fold-out for good.


End file.
